Sons of War
by SillyLioness
Summary: Sons of War. A project to make super soldiers out of children. Drilled from the first day, trained to defend Earth with whatever it takes, born to fight. Alfred is one of the Sons of War. But he will soon learn that there are other troubles in life than getting up early and wearing an uncomfortable uniform. [Human!AU][Rated T just to be safe]
1. Chapter 1

Alfred gave the blonde man next to him a hostile look. He and Ludwig (what a stupid name – in Alfred's opinion) were the best ones in their team and they were involved in a never ending competition. Who was able to do more push-ups? Who could run faster? Who would hit more dummies at the shooting range? Who could climb higher? Who could jump farther?

Sometimes Alfred was better, sometimes Ludwig. Alfred hated it to lose and he always gave his best to win. That was probably a good feature for a soldier, but not too useful at all to find friends. He and Ludwig were pretty lonely. The rest of the team got along quite well, but the two of them were lone wolves, not made for team work. When Ludwig looked back to Alfred his look wasn't hostile, just ice-cold.

When Alfred left the shower and headed for the locker room, he saw Ludwig. On full purpose he walked a bit against Ludwig, for what he got a relatively hard blow against his shoulder. What Alfred hated the most about Ludwig, besides his arrogance, was the fact that Ludwig was pretty tall for a 16-year-old. Alfred didn't want to look up to him.

With a deep sigh Alfred pushed the bulky, but at least light, armor into his locker and started to towel himself. Afterwards he slipped into his slightly uncomfortable dress uniform again. When he walked to the mess hall the flat heels of his - half-height, brightly polished - boots clattered in the same rhythm as always. This kind of marching had become a part of them, without noticing they fell into step when they walked somewhere together.

Like always lunch was something that had nutrients and whatsoever to keep you running or training in another way for hours and hours, but didn't really taste like anything. One got used to the stale taste; they had forgotten how 'normal' food tasted. Most of them had come here, when they had been at the age of eight or nine; at the beginning there was really a lot of theoretical classes, that taught them strategies, the structure of different weapons, when which weapon had to be used. They watched the older ones while shooting practice, analyzed their movements. They learned about the history of war, the tools that they had, the structure of the armed forces.

And then, then the practical classes started. Stamina, strength, shooting, running, push-ups, chin-ups, sit-ups, marches across pathless terrain – under burning sun, in freezing cold – combat-practice and training-missions.

They didn't know anything else, the memories of their childhood and family faded over the time. Alfred knew he had a brother and that they looked pretty alike, but he couldn't remember anything else of his family. At first it fretted him that he forgot his parents, but it lost importance over the years. Family wasn't important at all, they had been sent here to protect Earth.

Alfred was tired and exhausted since the training-missions got tougher every day. But he still had to visit Theory-classes, no matter how worn out he was. They didn't gain much new knowledge in Theory, but the things that they already had learned became more a part of their thoughts when they were in 'combat' – on their training-missions.

They patiently waited for their teacher to arrive. She was – like almost everyone here – a strict person. When she entered the room, they all rose from their chairs at the same time. They stood there - not moving, hands behind their backs, chins a bit up. "Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen." Her voice was loud. It rustled a bit when the whole group raised their right hand to their forehead and saluted. "Good morning Ma'am!" they shouted. "Sit down," she said with still loud voice. They sat down; again they moved exactly at the same time. "Tomorrow, Ladies and Gentlemen, you'll be going on a longer training-mission. You will have two days to complete the mission. It will be a capture the flag-mission. The mission will end after 48 hours, if you didn't manage to get the flag of the enemy team. Because of that, we'll repeat the rules again today. Jones." She looked at Alfred.

Alfred straightened his back. "The fate of the individual is irrelevant, the success of the mission is of highest importance," he dryly replied. His teacher gave him a pleased look and nodded. This question and answer-game went on for the whole lesson.

Even more tired than before Alfred fell onto his bed – which had a far too thin mattress - and let out an exhausted groan. Tomorrow he had to be fit and rested. Usually he was happy about missions and looked forward to them, but tomorrow Ludwig was in command. Towards the others Ludwig was relatively nice, but exactly that was the problem. He felt alone, just as always. Alone.

He turned restlessly on his back again and rubbed over his eyes. He just couldn't fall asleep and he wasn't even exited or something similar to that. He thought too much.

After all Alfred fell into a deep, dreamless and – most important – restorative sleep.

So, first of all: Sorry for my English. I'm not a native speaker and I actually translated this chapter, so it was kinda hard to find the right words. But anyway, thanks for reading. But be aware, I probably won't update this story on a regular basis, but maybe I'll finish it in the near future, since I'm on vacation now (doesn't mean anything, I'm sorta lazy)


	2. Chapter 2

A/N:  
Tino – Finland  
Sadiq – Turkey  
Natalia – Belarus  
Vash – Switzerland  
Elisabetha – Hungary  
Tim - Netherlands 

It was exactly 09:00 A.M. when Alfred's door was opened and he had to get up. Today they had been allowed to sleep longer than usual since the training-mission would start in the midmorning. They had time to have breakfast until 10:00 A.M. and at 11:00 A.M. they had to be on the parade ground, where their marching training took place. All of them were fully dressed with armor, everyone tightly holding their weapons. You couldn't kill with these weapons; it still looked at least intimidating for someone who didn't know what was going on.

When this training-mission was over they were allowed to visit the next city on the planet. The city's name was Darja; just the same as the planet itself was named. Since over 150 years the elite of the Earth-soldiers was trained here, they were – or would become – the best of the best. Though not everyone had returned from Darja, not everyone was tough enough to survive these years of living hell.

Alfred had sworn to himself that this sparsely populated planet wouldn't be his grave. Drill, training and medical substances had hardened their bodies and minds. He would be a hero of the battlefield; he wouldn't die on Darja as one of those, who were too weak. Only who survived the first dose of SP-22 was able to become a real soldier. SP-22 was a medicine that made one's body more resistant and more efficient. One could exert oneself longer, the muscles grew faster, it took longer to get hungry or thirsty, and it made one grow slightly faster. So Alfred had everything to return to Earth as a real man.

On the way to the plane that would take them to the training ground he almost walked against Tino. "Oh, sorry mate," Alfred apologized. "Ah, nonsense, everything's alright," Tino said smiling. Tino was friendly and smiled almost all the time, but everyone in the team knew that a cold killing-machine was hiding behind that smile, that's why Tino was a sniper, he never was afraid to pull the trigger and end a life.

Alfred sat down, which was a bit uncomfortable in his combat armor. He held his helmet tightly under his arm and waited for the plane to take off. When the door closed and the humming noise set in, Alfred closed his eyes for a moment. Now they would be in the wilderness of Darja for two days and this planet clearly had more than enough wilderness in Alfred's opinion.

Their plane didn't have windows; otherwise one could have seen a quite beautiful forest with some small lakes. But they weren't supposed to see the beauty in life. They also never discerned beautiful and ugly or black and white, there was nothing on their minds besides 'friend and enemy', nothing else.  
They didn't know the concept of racism, homophobia, sexism or other kinds of discrimination; they had to be a unit that works together. There was no place for personal dislikes or – even worse – these ideas of discrimination, so they had none. Some of them, especially Alfred and Ludwig, had personal dislikes, but otherwise their heads were empty.

They had no idea of politics either and they didn't have to. They would fight for Earth and politics wouldn't matter. They basically weren't allowed to have an opinion, for the sake of the mission.

It was pretty silent inside the plane, no talking, just constant calm breaths. Alfred looks around on their team; Ludwig, Tino, Sadiq, Natalia, Vash, Elisabetha, Tim and him. They were a pretty good and also a pretty tough team, though they were so different in personality, but after all they all were soldiers.

Natalia was quite beautiful, but she was just as cold as Tino. Her weapon of choice was a knife and she really was fast and also rather lethal with it.

Vash, well, he was grumpy almost all the time, but he was sort of a good guy after all; he was a fine shooter and was pretty good with planning what to do.

Elisabetha was a real juggernaut; it wasn't only her physical strength, but also her willpower that made her a great benefit for their squad.

Tim on the other hand wasn't that much of a fighter, though he was also a pretty good one; he was their medic and he always knew what to do.

And the last one: Sadiq. Sadiq was a devious, sly and silent fighter, just as deadly as the others; he was kind of an assassin.

Alfred had to admit that they all were really good at what they did, not as good as Ludwig and him, but really good.

A rumble made clear that the plane had landed, then the door was opened and they saw a scorched meadow that adjoined a dark forest with tall trees. Ludwig was the first to come off the plane, and then everyone else, Alfred was last.  
"Forward," Ludwig ordered, unlocked his weapon and headed for the trees. Thanks to a rough map they knew where they would find their own flag, which was actually the first challenge on this mission.  
It was already dark, when they reached their flag, but the days on Darja were short. The loud, unmistakable alert sound –that usually was used by sirens that warn of missile strikes – was the official start of their mission.


End file.
